


Queen of the Cats

by sweetcarolanne



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cats, Gen, Halloween, Magical Realism, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Royalty, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-07-28 12:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne
Summary: During the small hours of All Hallows Eve, the night belongs to the Queen of the Cats and her subjects...





	Queen of the Cats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kisuru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kisuru/gifts).



> Thanks to my anonymous beta.

By day, she appeared as an ordinary old woman, small and frail; the only signs of her true self were fingernails that seemed slightly too long for comfort, and a pendant with a silver crown dangling from it that she always wore around her neck.

When the clock struck midnight, she was no longer human. She was Queen of the Cats.

Her fur was lustrous calico, making her a symbol of all shades of cat in one. The crown pendant was a white patch near her throat, and her claws were magnificently sharp and ready to defend her subjects from all harm.

In the daylight, her dwelling was a ramshackle house with creaking doors and windowpanes streaked with dirt. Rumours circulated year after year at Halloween time about the little cottage being inhabited by an evil, child-stealing witch, despite the fact that the worst any local youngster had suffered at her hands was a stomach ache from consuming too much of the home-made candy with which she filled the plastic skulls and pumpkins of all trick-or-treaters who knocked on her door.

In the small hours of the morning, the humble home became a palace fit for the monarch she truly was. Everybody lounged on plush sofas and drank sweet milk from crystal bowls. Kittens played with a multitude of colourful plush toys, and adult cats swooned over the finest catnip that grew wild in the Queen’s own gardens. 

And during those small hours on All Hallows Eve, when the humans were away, the cats did play. It would be a foolish human who would dare to interfere with feline pleasures, for the cats were supreme tricksters in their own right, and their pranks were the stuff of legends.

Just last Halloween was such a time.

Dressed in sackcloth rags and with faces painted chalky-white to mimic bone, two teenage boys concealed themselves behind the curtains of what they believed to be the old woman’s empty cottage. They never noticed a small black kitten slinking past their feet as they tried to choke back sniggers

“Wait till the old bat gets back and sees us jumping out!”

“She’s gonna wet herself!”

The kitten’s tail waved three times back and forth, a signal to the black cat army concealed in every dark corner of the house. No cat emerged from hiding, but as the little one sat down to lick her paws, a fearsome screeching erupted in the still night air, sending the boys howling out the door and into the darkness faster than the touch of a firebrand to their britches.

“That was fun,” purred the Queen of the Cats as her great-great-granddaughter leapt up beside her onto her golden throne and began to bat idly at a ball of silken twine. “I wonder what nonsense they’ll try to treat us with next year for Halloween?”


End file.
